Home Sweep Home: NJIT Hits .440 in Home Opening Sweep of Manhattan

After 13 matches away from Newark, the NJIT women's volleyball team finally got to defend its home court on Wednesday and gave the home fans a lot to cheer about in a dominating straight-set victory over visiting Manhattan at the Wellness and Events Center.

VIDEO: Post-match interview with Adriana Goetz-Morales and Ines Varela

The Highlanders trailed 24-22 in the first set, but scored three straight to take the lead and eventually took the opening set 28-26. The second and third sets weren't nearly as close as NJIT won the second 25-14 and the third 25-8 en route to their sixth victory of the season.

NJIT hit a season-high .440 in the victory, including .556 in the dominating third-set win. Manhattan hit just .121 on Wednesday and hit .-100 in the final set.

The Highlanders offensive attack was led by graduate student Adriana Goetz-Morales who sent down a match-high 13 kills, hitting .500 for the match. Junior captain Ines Varela was also extremely efficient, hitting .588 with 10 kills and zero errors in 17 swings. Elley Torres' eight kills were the third best on the team as the junior also hit .500.

NJIT's offense was set up by the setting of Juliana Impaglia and Maddie Dennis, who dished out 20 and 14 assists, respectively.

Kaitlyn Arias finished with four of NJIT's 12 service aces in the win. All four of those aces came early in the third set as she served 11-straight times while the Highlanders jumped out to an early double-digit lead.

The Highlanders will take a nine-day break before opening up America East action next Friday against Binghamton. First serve is slated for 6pm at the WEC.